Cape Town - The drought-stricken City of Cape Town is set to spend R8 billion on its water infrastructure over the next 10 years.
During the 2015/16 financial year, the city spent R1.2bn on water engineering, refurbishment and replacement infrastructure.
Mayoral committee member for water services Xanthea Limberg said in addition to the city’s normal role of carrying out required work, a number of technologies will be introduced.
“Residents are, however, advised that much care is being taken to ensure that we do not unnecessarily overcapacitate our supply system. Intensive pre-planning is taking place to allow for the scale (and cost) of new infrastructure to be informed by requirements of the time,” Limberg said.
The city also has a number of projects to avert the worst drought situation. These include desalination plants, groundwater extraction and water reuse.
“In addition to this, there is an additional planned augmentation from the Table Mountain group aquifer and from the Oranjezicht Spring. Both these initiatives featured in the drought response prior to the launch of the Water Resilience Portfolio response in May,” she said.
Earlier this month, the city announced it would be taking a number of new actions to drive down water consumption, including the introduction of Level 5 restrictions, fines and a further increase in pressure management.
Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille at the time said measures to drive down consumption to 500 million litres of water per day were supplemented by other measures to augment the supply of water from non-surface water options by up to 500 million litres of water per day, which were currently under way. Together these actions formed part of the approach to building water resilience over the short to medium term.
Limberg said commissioned water will come online at different times, but there are plans to provide approximately 250 million litres per day through emergency schemes by February, rising incrementally thereafter.
“At all times there will be a focus on commissioning projects as quickly as possible. Contract periods for emergency water supply will last for two years. During this period the City, together with other stakeholders in the region, will be working to plan permanent augmentation schemes,” she said.
Over the past year, all water users other than the commercial property category had shown a trend of decreased consumption. This category included offices and small business operations. It excluded industrial properties, which formed part of a separate category, and which had displayed a welcome significant drop in water consumption over the past year.
Dam storage levels are currently at 37.5%, with usable water at 27.5%. Collective consumption is at 624 million litres of water per day. This is 124 million litres above the target of 500 million litres.